Code Switch

Shereen and Gene tackle listeners' reactions to recent episodes. One wants to know the difference between Persian and Iranian. (It's complicated.) Another wants more details about the risks to churches for becoming sanctuaries. (We asked a lawyer.) And a professor gave us a "loving critique" of our episode on Native hunting rights and sovereignty. (Thank you.) Plus a special call-out to the racial imposter in you.

En Medellín, Colombia, como en muchos lugares de América Latina, la belleza femenina es casi un deporte competitivo. Desde la adolescencia, Ximena estaba descontenta con su cuerpo. Así que a los 21 años decidió hacerse un procedimiento estético. Pero a veces la búsqueda de un estándar de belleza puede traer consecuencias que jóvenes como Ximena no habían previsto.

In this Podcast Extra, NPR correspondent Joe Shapiro recalls the life and legacy of Martin Sostre, someone he first reported on as a student in the 1970s. Sostre died a free man in 2015. But he spent at least nine years of his life in solitary confinement, including in the notorious Attica prison. Today, Sostre's life and pioneering prisoners' rights work is largely hidden from the public.

In this hour, TED speakers explore our origins as a species — who we are, where we come from, where we're headed — and how we're connected to everything that came before us. (Original Broadcast Date: October 24, 2014).

Shereen and Gene welcome reporter Nate Hegyi, who spent a day in Montana with a Nez Perce hunting party, a tribe that faces strong opposition from some who see these rights as unfair and out of sync with modern life.

Whether it's asking for a raise or asking for equality, speaking up can be risky — even dangerous. This hour, TED speakers share ideas and stories about taking the crucial step to say something.

Gene and guest host Glen Weldon (our play cousin from Pop Culture Happy Hour) explore how comics are used as spaces for mapping race and identity. Gene visits Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse in Philadelphia, and chats with proprietor Ariell Johnson who is reclaiming the comic book store, which once made her uneasy as a black fan. Meanwhile, C. Spike Trotman, another black woman, has made a name for herself as an online comics publisher of Iron Circus Comics in Chicago...

En 1984, en la pequeña ciudad chilena de Villa Alemana, Miguel Ángel Poblete miró hacia el cielo y vio a la Virgen María. Esta es la peculiar historia de un despertar espiritual que cautivó al país entero. Después de la historia de Miguel Ángel Poblete, sigan escuchando para oír un fragmento de "Ruido", una novela de Álvaro Bisama donde retrata a su ciudad natal, Villa Alemana, durante la década de los 80s.

Jeanette Vizguerra speaks with Adrian Florido about her experience living in the church where she's taken sanctuary as she fights her deportation case. Jeanette Vizguerra habla con Adrián Florido sobre su experiencia viviendo en la iglesia donde ha tomado santuario mientras disputa su caso de deportación.

Cities are among our greatest experiments in human co-habitation. Do they also hold the answers to some of our biggest problems? This hour, TED speakers explore how cities can change the world. (Original Broadcast Date: January 08, 2016).